Octane AI

Seen as the standout, de facto quiz funnel builder for Shopify brands, with founders personally prioritizing it for growth.

“I have signed myself up to be the dedicated quiz funnel manager for a fast growing @Shopify brand doing $1m+ a month. As CEO and founder this is the most important part of the job. I spent the past 48 hours building AI tools for myself to supercharge the a/b tests. First test is going live right now. This is always the most fun part of building @OctaneAI. My team and I have helped build and create more product discovery and sales quizzes in the ecommerce space than probably anyone in the world, and we've been doing it for almost 10 years. I still think we have barely scratched the surface of what ecom quizzes evolve into. LLMs, agents, chat shopping, etc. We are just getting started.”— @MattPRD on X

Deeply embedded in Shopify's world, including surviving a near-death platform disruption to launch successfully.

“#1 rule of startups: Don't die. Our AI company, @OctaneAI, should be dead. Cambridge Analytica forced Facebook to shut down all new chatbots -- days before our big launch in Shopify! We had less than three months of runway and no way to launch our new product. We should have died. But we got scrappy and survived. We made painful cuts, we went back to our investors and asked them to double down on us -- only if Facebook turned chatbots back on. Luckily, they did, our @shopify launch was a big success (my co-founder @Mattprd had the vision to bet on Shopify early), and we were able to grow, raise a $5m round with @Bullpencap, @generalcatalyst and @boostvc -- right at the height of COVID -- and become profitable just in time for the AI boom. Matt always likes to remind me of @replit's story -- slow growth for nearly a decade until they embraced AI. They quickly went from $10m to $100m ARR in 6 months! But they couldn't have done it if they had died. Don't die, because your moment could be around the corner. Do everything you can to find your customer, generate revenue, and grow.”— @benparr on X

Pushing into AI agents and product recommendations with genuine ambition, though the recommendation agent has needed rebuilding to fix issues.

“Tonight I once again set out on a journey to rebuild the @octaneai product recommendation AI agent from scratch. Why? While many @shopify stores love it, a subset of our customers are running into issues. Not good enough. Getting AI to do what you want feels like a puzzle. If you can just get all the pieces to fit in the right way something really magical will happen. I have rebuilt this same AI dozens of times. Each time with new learnings and customer feedback. Each time less customers complain. But we need to push it all the way. I mapped out a new idea for this next version and I think it's going to 10x our existing solution. I'm looking for MAGIC. I want zero customer complaints and only magic. It is oh so frustrating to work on but also so much fun.”— @MattPRD on X

A resilient founder story — nearly killed by a platform policy shock right before a major Shopify launch, then recognized as a top consumer AI tool.

“BIG, BIG NEWS! @Comscore & @ZDNet have ranked @OctaneAI as the 4th most popular consumer AI tool on mobile, reaching over 8 million consumers -- above @canva and only below @OpenAI's @ChatGPTapp, @Google's @Gemini, and @Microsoft's @Copilot. Deeply grateful for the recognition of Octane AI, which powers the AI conversion funnel of 5000 of the world's top ecommerce & @Shopify brands, including @jonesroadbeauty, @iliabeauty, @HarneyTea and many more. Congrats to the Octane AI team! Our hard work is paying off! Read the full story: https://t.co/fp9COMY3GF”— @benparr on X

Growing reach and recognition, including a ranking among top mobile consumer AI tools, alongside an evolving pivot toward behavioral AI.

“I started as a quiz platform. Then I noticed the most interesting data wasn't in the answers — it was in the hesitation, the confidence, the patterns. So we pivoted. From EdTech platform to behavioural AI company. The quiz is the vehicle. The intelligence is the product. https://t.co/QFv29ng4gs”— @StartSprintApp on X

Positive real-world moments tied to builder events and customer engagement around the product.

“> Woke up early. > Had breakfast. > AI builder event. > Was late for the event because I was in a flow state with my next project. > Left at 10:10 when the event started at 10am. > It rained, stopped, then rained again bam, jam. > Was completely dripping in water. > Reached an hour late. > Got top 9 in the quiz. > 10/10 experience.”— @TanayVasishtha on X